- The Centre and State Governments have worked in harmony to redress the grievances of farmers. Both have introduced a series of measures every day such as subsidies, including crop insurance to farmers, free flow of agricultural credit, unemployment allowance to rural landless/migrant workers under MANREGA, etc.
- The govt. is using every arrow in its quiver to ensure the health of farmers by continuously sensitizing the farmersabout working in fields with covered faces while maintaining social distancing.
- In order to reinforce a zero-hurdle harvest season, the government has exempted the movement of farm machineryfrom lockdown.
- Reforms in e-NAM
- The new features of National Agriculture Market platform were introduced as a welcome move to decongest mandis.
- They aim to strengthen agriculture marketing by reducing the need for farmers to physically access the wholesale mandis for selling their harvested produce.
- Technological support
- Kisan Sabha Appdeveloped by CSIR to connect farmers to supply chain and freight transportation management system was recently launched to support farmers during the lockdown.
- The app aims to provide the most economical and timely logistics support to the farmers and increase their profit margins by minimizing the interference of middlemen and directly connecting with the institutional buyers.
- Kisan Rath app was also launched to facilitate farmers & traders in searching for transport vehicles for movement of Agriculture & Horticulture produce.
- Boost to Contract farming
- Various states have promoted innovative model allowing investors and farmers to enter into an agreement for contract farmingin view of the continuing uncertainties due to the pandemic.
- For example, the Consumer-Farmer Compact in Telanganahas been ensuring food availability and access in COVID-19 times.
- In this system, the consumers support farmers with their agricultural needs; in return, farmers ensure consumers are able to access food in a hassle-free manner.
- Allocations for direct transfers
- Increasing the allocations for DBT to farmers through PM KISAN and including everyone who is actively undertaken during the lockdown.
- This has helped most farming families to be partially compensated for the losses seen in months of March and April.
- It has provided them with some cushion against the deflationary effectseen on farm-prices due to the prolonged lockdown.
- Focussing on Alternative Market Channels
- The alternative market channel works on the principles of decentralisation and direct-to-home delivery.
- The idea is to create smaller, less congested marketsin urban areas with the participation of farmers’ groups and Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) so that farmers have direct access to consumers.
It may provide a valuable option against the lockdown when efforts to avoid crowding in the wholesale markets are likely to continue.
